


Drop It On A Dime (But Not The Song, Coda #1)

by emilyray (emilyenrose), ignipes



Series: But Not The Song [2]
Category: Bandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-23
Updated: 2008-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-16 02:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyenrose/pseuds/emilyray, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon is sixteen, and he really wishes his owners would hurry up and close the sale already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drop It On A Dime (But Not The Song, Coda #1)

_  
**Drop It On A Dime (But Not The Song, Coda #1)**   
_   
[Story Index and Warnings](http://community.livejournal.com/shacklesnchains/446.html)

 ** _Drop It On A Dime_**  
_

 _Not long ago I gave up hope,  
But you came along and gave me something I could hold onto  
And I want you more than you could ever know..._

 _- 'The World Has Its Shine' by Cobra Starship_  
_

Brendon is sixteen, and he really wishes his owners would hurry up and close the sale already.

He likes the family he's with now - the husband (who's officially his owner, really) he hardly ever sees, he's always away on business, but the wife is sweet and nice and easily flustered. She married up - she was just a shopkeeper's daughter, a terribly pretty one - and she'd never had slaves before. It's pretty obvious that she doesn't quite know how to treat Brendon, and she veers between let's-all-be-one-big-happy-family friendliness and who-is-in-charge-here-young-man severity. Brendon doesn't mind. What he does mind is that the husband is too cheap to get the piano tuner in, even though Brendon told them three weeks ago that it was either that or get him a tuning fork and a decent wrench.

They bought Brendon to teach their daughters (nine and fourteen) how to play the piano and sing, which he guesses he's done pretty well at. It's not the first time he's had to teach, and the girls kind of adore him. He's got basically nothing to do all day except play with them. Little Marie - Miss Maria - is his favorite, she's shy and she likes it when he's spazzy and noisy and won't shut up, listens to him with big eyes and a little smile. But lately Miss Jacqueline - that's the fourteen-year-old - has taken to following him around and staring at him all the time and blushing, which is a bit weird and Brendon doesn't know what to make of it. She always wants him to sing duets with her. The other day she tried to order him to kiss her.

He thinks it's why he's being sold.

He hasn't met his new owner, though he's been seen by her man of business, Blackinton, several times now. Blackinton interviewed him the first time, insists on listening to him play every time he's there, but Brendon's not actually fooled. They could have finished the sale weeks ago, but his mistress is slowing everything down so that Blackinton - who's tall and lanky, with a long thin nose and humorous eyebrows - will come and see her more often. Brendon doesn't _know_ that they're having an affair, of course. He's just a slave. It's not his business to know anything.

Today turns out to be different, though, because today instead of turning up in a cab like usual, Blackinton arrives in a carriage. Brendon knows because he's trying to convince Miss Jacqueline to do some piano practice at the time, and she's evading it by pointing out everything that's going on in the street outside the schoolroom window instead, so he hears her go "Ooooh, it's the Asher coach!" and then "Oh, she's so _pretty_ ," in a tone of voice which is closer to accusatory than anything else. "Come look, Brendon! Don't you think she's pretty? I'm prettier, though, aren't I?"

"I really don't know, miss," says Brendon, and then feels a wave of gratitude when the doorbell rings. "Maybe that's the piano tuner," he says, and flees.

"Brendon!" - his mistress catches him in the hallway. "I was just about to send someone to find you. Your new mistress wants to see you. And be on your _best_ behavior, she's a _lady_."

Brendon knows she's a lady. No one's been able to talk about anything else (except Blackinton's humorous eyebrows) for weeks. "Yes, ma'am," he says, and follows her docilely into the parlor. One of his hands is jittering, fingers tapping nervously against his thigh, and he tries to make it stop. He's been sold a few times before and this is _always_ the worst bit. He makes the most awful first impressions, he knows he does: he talks too much or says something when he shouldn't or fidgets or moves around too much or, yes. There's a harpsichord in the parlor, the good one that he never gets to play (...that no one gets to play: Brendon's not actually sure what the _point_ of having a musical instrument just for looking at is, but it seems to make the mistress happy even if it makes his fingers itch for some disobedience.) Maybe, if he's lucky, his new owner will want to hear some music, and not actually talk to him, and then she'll think well of him to start with after all. Brendon's confident about music.

“Is that him?” says a low, sweet voice as he enters the room. Brendon immediately drops to his knees: _first impressions._ His first owner, the old-fashioned old man who taught him music, was keen on kneeling and bowing and all the other things that showed _proper deference_ , as he put it. Most of Brendon’s owners since seem to like it too, even though slaves aren't usually expected to do it these days except for royalty and things. He keeps his eyes fixed on the floor and folds his hands together to stop them from moving. "Why's he doing that?" asks Lady Asher.

"Old-fashioned trainers, probably, milady," says Blackinton, a shiver in his voice that might be amusement. Blackinton usually seems to be amused.

"He's very good like that," says his mistress anxiously. "Very well-behaved, we're all fond of him."

A pair of court shoes steps into Brendon's line of sight, high-heeled and buttoned at the ankle and bright leaf green, neat and perfect against the slightly shabby carpet. Brendon's never seen anyone who wears green shoes before.

"You don't have to do that," says the lady quietly above his head. "Come on, look up."

Brendon looks up into dark, dark eyes, and her face is serious but there's a little gleam of a smile in those eyes somewhere. She's wearing a smart green jacket and a white dress, and her dark brown hair is loose around her face. She's younger than he expected.

She's, oh, _so_ much prettier than Miss Jacqueline.

"Um –" he says, and then remembers he hasn't been given permission to speak and stops.

"And now _stand_ up," she suggests, and that's definitely a smile in her eyes. Blackinton snorts. "That's a spinet over there, right?"

"Um," says Brendon without thinking as he climbs to his feet. She's taller than he is, and the high-heeled green shoes make her taller still. "Harpsichord," and then he sort of wants to curse his own stupid tongue. You don't _correct_ an owner, you just go along with it, you do as you're told, and if she says it's a spinet then it's a -

The smile spills over from her eyes to her mouth, and he realizes it was a test. "Play me a song?"

He's so shaken up when he sits down - conscious of his mistress and Blackinton tracking his every move with their eyes, though Lady Asher's gone to sit by the fireplace, crossing her ankles and apparently fascinated by the very ugly china dogs on the mantelpiece - that he starts playing the first thing that comes into his head, without thinking. He’s already a few bars in when he realizes that it's one of the duets he's been doing with Miss Jacqueline. He panics, hits a wrong note, stumbles to a halt.

"No, go on," says Lady Asher. "I like that one."

"But –" says Brendon. It's a sickly pastoral love song thing, and the woman's voice is supposed to come in first. _Oh how I love the spring, when fairies and flowers all dance in a ring._ Brendon actually kind of hates it.

"Start again," orders the lady. "Just sing your bit, it's all right."

Brendon improvises the soprano tune on the harpsichord for the first verse, and then switches to playing the tenor voice part along with the accompaniment instead and sings the soprano down the octave for the chorus. Lady Asher doesn't join in until halfway through the silly _tra-la-la_ bit. It takes Brendon a couple of seconds to realize that the soft alto harmony isn't just happening in his head.

He can't help it, he turns around to look at her, still playing, and he must look as surprised as he feels because she smiles that amused smile again and Blackinton snorts with laughter.

Brendon's mistress - Brendon's _old_ mistress - applauds when they're done. "That was lovely!" she keeps saying. "Just lovely - so sweet and so moving, what a fine voice you have, my lady, and what a _dear_ little song –"

"Thank you. I'm afraid we really have to be going now," says Lady Asher. "Does Brendon have any personal belongings?"

His mistress looks briefly stunned. "Er - I - well, that is –" Brendon's kind of taken aback as well. Slaves don't have personal belongings. Slaves _are_ personal belongings.

"Just wondering," Lady Asher says. "Well, it was lovely to meet you. Brendon, say goodbye."

"Um - goodbye, ma'am," says Brendon, standing up awkwardly, and - wait, that's it, they're done, he's going?

Well, okay. Okay.

He sort of wishes he could say goodbye to little Marie. He might actually miss her.

In the carriage, Lady Asher crosses her legs, showing a little bit of silk-stockinged ankle above her green shoes. "Did you really sleep with that woman, Ryland?" she asks.

"She's not all bad," says Blackinton. "I feel sorry for her. That bastard she's married to has half a dozen mistresses."

"Hmph," she says. She looks at Brendon. "Do me a favor," she says. "I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

"I - yes, my lady?" says Brendon.

She blinks. "All right, do me two favors. You can call me-" Blackinton coughs – "Lady Victoria," she finishes, glaring at him. "And you can tell me exactly what you think about that song. Honestly."

Brendon stares at her, tries not to stare at her, thinks again how much prettier she is than Miss Jacqueline, and weighs the options. If she wants him to lie, he doesn't know what she wants to hear. But the truth is kind of -

"Do please be as rude as you like," she says.

"I... think it's a steaming heap of shit?" says Brendon nervously, and only remembers to add, "Lady Victoria," afterward.

She sighs hugely. "Thank goodness. If you thought it was a _dear_ little song I'm really not sure I could keep you." She smiles at him. It's a sharp expression on her pretty face. "And I'm pretty certain I want to keep you."

Brendon is sixteen, and his new owner is nineteen. She lives, he discovers, in a vast country estate for most of the year, and she has more property all over the country. Her parents are dead; she takes formal control of her inheritance when she's twenty-one; half the well-bred young men in three provinces are in love with her beautiful face and the rest are in love with her beautiful fortune.

She sings alto, and plays the piano and a little bit of guitar but not any of the other dozens of instruments she keeps in the music room at her estate. "Those are for you to play with," she says.

She never lets the piano get out of tune.


End file.
